It’s Been Years

I wasn’t expecting a voice from the clouds
which was why I didn’t look up
when I heard my name called
on that busy city sidewalk.

Nor did I peer into mail boxes
or lift the lids of trash cans.
Or peer down at the cracks in the pavement
in case I was summoned from below.

It was you, somehow recognizing me
in that crush of people, hailing me
like tossing a lasso with your voice
to halt me in my tracks, bind us together.

You said you’d been thinking of me
and suddenly there I was.
My name was all you had to work with.
Thank God it found some use at last.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in That, Dunes Review, Poetry East, and North Dakota Quarterly with work upcoming in Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal, Thin Air, Dalhousie Review, and failbetter.